202 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



fOoT. 7, 1886. 



BIKE. 



FOUR of us, Reid, Beck, Manny and myself, were on 

 a Fourth of July trij) to Clarlcsville with our bicycles 

 and various other members of the M. B. C. were sitting 

 with otir heels braced against the hotel railing when 

 the aimouncement of the trij) was made by the first 

 tlu-ee and I jDricked up my ears at it so sharply that I was 

 asked to go along: and so it came about. 



We went to a raih-oad town just within New Mexico 

 first, aud from there started over the prau-ies with oiu- 

 wagon teamster Henry, and colored hoy John. A good 

 many of the boys saw us off at the traiu"^we were to take 

 for the before-mentioned town. Some of our friends 

 commissioned us to bring them bear skins and deer skins, 

 others to secm-e Indian scalps for trimming various bon- 

 nets; and one yormg lady went so far as to bespeak for 

 herself a captive Indian boy for a page, none, however, 

 dreaming of the one improbable thing we did get and that 

 was a little bear. And I may as well say that this tale 

 Is mainly about this bear. After we had left St. Louis 

 far behind us, and when we were talking over our coming 

 adventures for the twentieth time almost, Reid said, 

 yjust let me do the fishing and you fellows do the hunt- 

 ing. Fishing is my hold."" And" so it proved to be, John, 

 who had officiated as cook, etc., on various other trips 

 with him remarked to tlie rest of us sidewise, "Jest let 

 that man get a-fishing and j^ou won't see notliing of him 

 'fore way into the nig'ht. Ef fish jest hked fishin' 's well 

 's that man they'd be no mo' fish left in the creek!" 

 Manny then said," "Well, I want to kill a deer if I can and 

 then I want to get a bear and then I want plenty to eat. 

 I tell you fellows, a man on a cruising trip wants plenty 

 of good solid food," Beck here came to the front, "All I 

 want is one deer and a pair of horns 'n' plenty to eat." 

 The other member of the party, wliom modesty forbids 

 me mentioning more specifically, thereupon remai'ked 

 that he first wanted to kill a deer,' then a httle bear, and 

 then to set to work and kill a grizzly, and then to have a 

 little fishing and plenty to eat, adding with one of those 

 bm-sts of inspu-ed prophecy which occasionally come to 

 the most bereft, "And, great Scott! fellows, if we'd only 

 get a httle cub bear wouldn't we just paralyze the club 

 when we got back!" And then, our berths being made 

 U]> for the night, we betook ourselves to them, Httle 

 dreaming that we had a prophet in our party. Old Sol 

 Perkins, out in our county, once dehvered hiinself , how- 

 ever, about as follows on this subject: 



"It's easy enough to set yourself up for a prophet if you 

 only know which way the wind's blowin'. All's wanted 

 is to stand in with the clerk of the weather 'n' you can 

 make up an almanac that the clerk himself will take to 

 going by. Oh yes, them old time Bible chaps were, but 

 Lord bless you, look at the friends they had. Whenever 

 one of 'em made a prediction, some friend of his'n would 

 come along and do the tiling in order that it might come 

 to pass, which was spoken by the prophet saying. Any- 

 body can prophecy if he has the right kind of bacldn'. " 

 It was so with my vision; it was helped into materiaUty 

 the strenuoiis co-operation of myself and colleagues. 

 We worked hard for our bear and got him. 



At S — , the end of the I'ailway jom-ney , we made up om* 

 outfit. For the benefit of those who go camping, I will 

 give the list of it. It somids prosaic, but it may be very 

 acceptable to some. These provisions lasted six gom-mands 

 33 days: 

 3 6x9 wall t«nts. 

 3 pairs of blankets each. 

 6 gaim ponclias to sleep on. 

 1 rubber pillow each. 

 3 skillets; 

 1 Dutch OA^en. 



1 large coffee pot (for boiling 

 water in for all purposes). 



il Eureka coffee pot (for mak- 

 ing coffee as is coffee). 



1 bread pan. 



Idisk. 



8 tin plates. 



8 tin cups. 



Knives, forks, spoons large 



and small, butcher knife, 



axe, hatchet, spade, extra 



rope, matches. 

 3 iron bars oft. long. 

 lOOlbs. flour. 

 31bs. baking powder. 

 251bs. lard. 

 251bs. buttter. 

 lOlbs. crackers. 

 3.'»lbs. cornmeal. 



The grub box was a large box of shelves made to stand 

 upright in the end of the wagon and fastened to the bed 

 by means of bolts through the sides of the box and bed, 

 and having a turn down door, which, when propiDed up 

 by the swinging leg serves as a table on which to cook, 

 and if need be, eat. It is a handy and almost indispensa- 

 ble thing for a wagon journey, and is a kitchen cupboard 

 while in camp. Wliile in camp we fastened one end 

 of the wagon cover over the top of this box, extendinj 

 the cover out back of the wagon toward the tents, am 

 upholding the other two corners by means of stakes and 

 ropes, making an awning that protected our culinary 

 afilahs from both sun and rain. The two iron bars spoken 

 of were suspended on stones across the fire and served to 

 hold skillets, coffee pot, etc., where they did the most 

 good. In addition to this outfit there were guns, and fish- 

 ing tackle ad libitum, and a supply of the following medi- 

 cines: (Quinine, arnica, C. G. pills, Jamaica ginger, 

 essence of peppermint, courtplaster, laudanum, carbohc 

 acid, bandages and absorbent cotton, we were going out of 

 reach of doctors and all of them might, tlu'ough accident 

 or illness, become imperatively necessary. Besides, if one 

 has a penchant for amateur physicing, the opportunity 

 afforded for dosing every casual bellyache one hears of 

 is not to be lost, for you have the poor devils completely 

 at yom- mercy. I had my party so utterly subdued that 

 it was a matter of sincere regTet that I hadn't a whole 

 drug store with me, for I could have fed a stomach- 

 stricken nimi-od or a colic-ridden Izaak Walton upon any- 

 thing in the whole realm of drugdom from the tincture of 

 squintessence of aqua pura to the "pulverized tongue of 

 a spotted calf weaned in the dark of the moon." 



So much for the outfit. We packed it in the wagon as 

 well as we could, climbed on top of it, called to the dogs, 

 waved our hands at the group of idlers, cowboys and 

 hotel people, and rattled out of town up onto the rolling 

 prairie, off toward the mountains 100 miles distant, whose 

 snow-capped peaks glistened and blinked down at our 

 aspiring and ambitious party, giving fair promise of icy 



51bs. salt. 

 351bs. sugar. 

 30 candles and one candlestick. 

 3 bottles pickles. 

 3 bottles Worcestershire sauce. 



3 cans pepper. 



4 cans meat. 

 6 cans baked beans. 

 6 bars soap. 



3 hams. 



1 strip bacon. 

 ISlbs. coffee. 

 .3 bushels potatoes. 



5 gallous maple molasses. 



2 wooden water buckets. 



4 pails jelly (4q[ts.). 



cans sardines. 



1 bottle vanUla. 

 31bs. nails. 

 Straps, rivets, wax ends, awl, 



screw driver, wire, pliers, 

 extra underclothing and 

 shoes and woolen socks. 

 1 grub box. 



streams and rugged fastnesses; of nights of snug repose, 

 days of adventui-esome quests; of fish and game, and 

 evenings — camj)-fixe evenings — of recounter and corncob 

 pipes! 



We had not gone very far until some one exclaimed, 

 "Snake!" and all eyes intuitively turned to the side of the 

 road where a greenish yellow snake was making off as 

 fast as he could go, "It's a rattlesnake!" was the next 

 exclamation, and as I had taken my gim out early in the 

 afternoon in anticipation of some "such encounter, I was 

 first down off the wagon. Now, the rattlesnakes you 

 read about in books, when attacked or threatened, always 

 sound then rattles; and people often sa^^, "There is some 

 protection against rattlers: they always give warning." 

 But here was an e very-day, outdoor, imlettered snake, 

 who liadn't heard about its being the regulation thmg to 

 rattle. And although I ran along behind him, and even, 

 in company with Beck, who also was down by that time, 

 headed him until he nearly stopped crawling, he never 

 made a sotmd, and he could have, too, for when I had 

 shot him in the head and we had cut off his tail we 

 coimted eight rattles, A while after that I shot another 

 smaller one, this time shooting it through the body with 

 Beck's revolver, and it did not rattle; and toward evening 

 Beck, with his characteristic temerity, tramped on one 

 and kiUed it, with the same absence of resultant rattling. 

 This leads me to the conclusion that they don't always 

 rattle. Henry, whose many years of plains life in the 

 Southwest gave him credence, was then asked about 

 them. 



"No," he said, "they don't allays rattle. Stands to rea- 

 son. A snake aint goin' to waste no time with his tail if 

 he's in a tight place, Com-se, they do sometimes, justthe 

 same as a dog barks. Out there on the Trampares I 

 jabbed a spade in a dog hole (prauie dog hole) one time 

 that I seed a snake run into, 'n' just caught dowTi on 

 about three inches of liis tail, 'n' Lord! you hadn't time to 

 think before he'd turned back out er that hole 'n' hit the 

 spade, and he hit (struck with its fangs) it twice, too, so 

 close together you couldn't hardly coimt it. Yes, I've 

 knowed 'em to bite peoj^le and kill 'em, and I've knowed 

 'em to get well when they wasn't a thing in camp but a 

 little chewin' tobacco to put over it, just by tying some- 

 thing around the leg. Doctors? Hell! They aint no mo' 

 good on snake bites than I am. They was a "fool Mexican 

 down on the "Big L." ranch reached in a dog hole fur a 

 snake 'n' thought he could pull it out afore it could bite 

 him, 'n' it jest naturally hit him a lick on the hand and 

 then give 'im another before he could let go. And they 

 was a Dr. Tarbox down in that country who claimed to 

 know about aU they was a goin', and they sent fur him to 

 boss that snake bite. Well, he doctored it awhile and his 

 arm kep' a swell in', 'n' so he cut his hand off. And then 

 this doctor (he wore specks) set down and wrote a medi- 

 cal paper all about the case 'n' how he cured it. Well, 

 his arm still kep' a swellin', 'n' so he cut it off again at the 

 shoulder, and then puts on his specks and writes another 

 article aljout how to cm-e snake bites! Well, the feller's 

 shoulder swelled up on him then and he up 'n' died, 'n' it' 

 he 'wTi'ote any more articles I aint heard of 'em!" 



We camp*ed that night on the Cimarron, a mountain 

 sti'eam, but whose waters are turgid from the placer min- 

 ing carried on at its source. When we broke camp next 

 morning and were all ready to start, the oft quoted Henry 

 climbed up on to the wagon and said, "Fellers, one of ye 

 just get that dun horse by the head and the rest get at the 

 wheels, 'n when I say 'cut loose' let go that hoss'n git out 

 the way, 'n the rest of you start the wagon. He aint broke 

 yit and starts off in the morning kind of reckless." 



Well, we did as directed, and when he gave the word 

 the horse squatted back an instant, and then there shot 

 out a yellow streak of broncho Avith a velocity which not 

 only outstripped the wagon and the other horse, but which 

 was no more impeded by harness and singletree than if 

 it had been a yellow cannon ball, which it was. This 

 performance was repeated three times, and as many single- 

 trees patched up before the vicious brute succeeded in 

 jerking the wagon after him, when we proceeded, Reid 

 and Beck walking on ahead as far as Cimarron, 8 miles, 

 away toward the mountains. There we found an old 

 Mexican town located on the Santa Fe trail, its days of 

 glory and prosperity departed. Some lazy Mexicans were 

 playing Mexican monte in a saloon and some of the boys 

 went in and took a hand and taught the natives how to 

 play it. In consequence of which they were not over 

 friendly toward us during our stay there, which lasted 

 over the next day. For Hemy found a Mexican with a 

 team of good horses for which he succeeded, after an 

 hour's reflection and examination of the respective teams, 

 in trading his, giving a few dollars to boot, A funny 

 thing about tliis bargain was that although he speaks 

 Spanish fluently, he asked no questions about the horses 

 he traded for aiid was asked none about those he traded. 

 In commenting upon it afterward he said, "I knowed he 

 hadn't any worse boss 'n that yeUow de\'il on the off side, 

 'n if he had it was my lookout." Again, a week or two 

 later, when I had said, "Henry, how do you think that 

 Mexican is getting along with that dim horse?" he only 

 chewed a blade of grass dreamily and complacently and 

 looked over at the snow on the mountains and replied, 

 "That's the last thing on earth that troubles me!" The 

 horse-trading ethics of a man, who, at the age of 14, 

 "made his first swap and could drive anything that wo' 

 hair" necessarily is to concern himself solely with the new 

 team. 



When we had made the exchange and hitched up and 

 got a mile out of town the tongue of the wagon broke, 

 necessitating a return and a stay there of a day, as before 

 mentioned, during which time the wagon was overhauled 

 and Beck had a spell of sickness and I made a pudding. 

 Preparatory to my pudding I sent John to a Mexican's 

 house for some milk, and the proud scion of the noble 

 house of Montezuma went out in his back yard and 

 milked a lot of goats. Now if Beck hkes one article of 

 food better than another it is that which he can get at 

 first, so when he spied the milk in a nice wide pan, with 

 an avidity (and I call that a mighty polite tei-m to use in 

 this connection) which tlie manufacturer of the milk her- 

 self might emulate, he thank as much of it as he could. 

 "Ah, therelmy friend," saidhe to me witha pleased look, 

 "that's milk. No chalk and water ui that, is there? If 

 there is any left when you get tlirough Avith yom- puddin' 

 I'll diink it up," You 'see, he didn't know it was nanny 

 goat's. Even that night after supper he didn't suspect 

 it. "Seems t-o me," he said, "'s if the cows had been 

 eating rag weed. It tastes kind of Hke it in my mouth." 

 But along toward morning there was wailing and gnash- 



ing of teeth just outside the tent. The others poimded 

 him on the back and did what they could for him, but it 

 was not until I awoke that the scientific aspect of the 

 expedition began to be manifest. His sickness, being 

 audible, soon brought me to my feet, and as I staggered 

 drowsily but em-aptm-ed out into the cool and audible 

 night I prescribed catnip tea. He rejected the idea with 

 scorn. I reflected that he was rejecting almost every- 

 thing he had except his sliirt, but still I couldn't help 

 feeling that a man was in hard luck who wouldn't stop 

 what he was doing then to drink catnip tea. However, 

 the fell ravages of his disease soon weakened him so that 

 he became an easy jjrey to mv desires, and I fed him on 

 alternate doses of whisky and Jamaica ginger and Jamaica 

 ginger and whisky, until by morning it was hard to tell 

 which was nearer heaven, he or L 



With the day, however, came other occupations for ua 

 all, so that he had a chance to rally; and before evening 

 we were well on our way toward and almost in the shadow 

 of the mountain, and the night found us sleeping the 

 sleep of the tired in our white tents near a purling stream 

 which made fertile the long stretches of meadows in Van 

 Breemer's Canon. 



But I must go back to that pudding. We had pm- 

 chased a yellow cook book at Kansas City, and the pud- 

 ding was really meant for a test of the cook book more 

 than anything else, as we felt doubtful about going oft" 

 into the wilds dependent upon an untried cook book for 

 what Ns e were to eat. I forget now what tlie recipe was, 

 but it Avas a long paragraph of rhodomontade about bread 

 pudding, and spoke of scalded bread, beaten eggs, milk, 

 sugar, jelly, and baking thirty minutes, and if 1 had the 

 foul fiend who wrote it here now I would make one of 

 them and compel him to eat it. The ravages of goat's 

 milk are nothing to those it will create. The only thing 

 that saved all of us from terrible deaths was that none of 

 us ate any of it. We tried it on the dog first and he ran 

 and jumped in the creek. 



But I must hurry on to the bear. We traveled up the 

 canon for two days, camping at night by the stream 

 which gi-adually became smaller until we reached a wide 

 stretch of park or open country, from which we descended 

 into the valley of the Vermejo, a much larger stream, 

 where Reid essayed his first ti-out fishing, verifying all 

 that John had said of him. He came in long after we 

 had eaten our part of the supper with thirty -eight fine 

 trout in his basket. It looked to us like a fine catch, 

 though our fishing further up cast it into the shade. We 

 ate them for breakfast next morning and that afternoon. 

 When near om- joiuney's end, just after a heavy rain- 

 storm Reid and Manny discovered a deer in a thicket and 

 the latter opened fire on her, and in a moment I was up 

 with them, and Reid pointed out the deer to me and I 

 quicldy followed Maimy's example. It was the first wild 

 deer either of us had ever seen and it had been confidently 

 predicted by all the wise men I had talked with on the 

 subject that the only tiling we would get on such an oc- 

 casion would be the buck fever. Now to say that we 

 were excited would be to do what the intelligent reader 

 has already discerned is not my practice— tell the truth; 

 so I will just remark that we were as cool as icebergs 

 during the few seconds in which we were filing the ten 

 shots that it took to kill that deer. Our last shots were 

 fired together so that the killing rests equally between 

 us. Whoever did the work though sent a bullet through 

 a running deer behind the shoulder, killing it dead, at a 

 distance of about 100yds. and if that is buck fever I hope 

 I had it instead of Manny. 



There was great rejoicing as Beck, without a trace of 

 the regret he must have felt at not having had a hand in 

 it visible on his shining face, triumphantly carried the 

 limp and hf eless creature back to the wagon on his broad 

 shoulder. For about a day after that there w-ere great 

 times cooking and eating venison, and after that it spoiled. 

 We had somehow imbibed the idea that meat would keep 

 fresh up there. Perhaps it does in some mountains, but 

 it certainly spoiled there quicker than Henry said it would 

 down on the hot plains. Om- beai-, too— but I am neglect- 

 ing that bear too long. Within a day or two thereafter 

 we were permanently installed in camp by a swift rush- 

 ing mountain stream formed by the melting snow on the 

 summit of the mountains just above us, and the record of 

 the days that followed is one of such fisliing exploits and 

 hunting adventures as most everybody is familiar with, 

 and it is not worth while to dwell upon them. We hunted 

 with but slight success, owmg to a scarcity of game and 

 an unfavorable time of year to see it in, the timber being 

 for the most part a mass of foliage through which the eye 

 coidd not penetrate half as far as deer could smell; but 

 the fishing was all that could be desired. Reid said he 

 had fished all through Utah, Colorado and Idaho, and had 

 never before seen any stream to compare with that one. 

 I supjiose he could catch three fish to our one, yet any of 

 us could catch over a hundred speckled trout in a few 

 hours' fishing. The most killing flies were the coachman, 

 professor and professor-hackle, with a red-ibis for rainy, 

 dark days. 



One evening Henry and I rode the horses part way up 

 the mountain, when, dismounting, we tied them to a tree 

 and proceeded on foot up the two sides of a little stream, 

 which, however, soon headed at a spring, so that our way 

 lay through thickets and occasional stretches of forest. 

 Just before dark I heai-d him whistle for me, and going 

 up to whence the sound proceeded I whistled around 

 awhile but failed to find them. I therefore started to 

 descend the mountain, the gathering darkness intervened, 

 and presto! I was lost on the mountain at night. I sujj- 

 pose many a man has been lost in the darkness on a 

 mountain. Turning his head whithersoever he will there 

 is naught to be seen but blackness — night. He is isolated 

 for once in his life at least. He begins to feel the chiUy 

 night air. He may have had a companion or a friend a 

 little while back who knew the way, but he has left him, 

 and is out of sight and hearing. He knows that up higher, 

 on the crest of the mountain, is a commanding spot 

 whence the whole surrounding country would be visible 

 were it not for the night. He can scale that mountain, 

 but he must needs, even then, wait through a long and 

 doubtful night for a morning he is in that savage 

 country none too sure of seeing. He may descend 

 the mountain, but he wiU be going down any 

 one, and which one he knows not, of a hundred 

 vaUeys leading out upon life at a different station. One 

 of them leads to home, the other ninty-nine only 

 to lure him down into a world whose atmosphere is 

 heavy with the taint of corrupt things. How many men 

 are there who, when lost on the moxmtain, ever again 



